The fate of a planned $500 million railyard next to a low-income West Long Beach neighborhood is finally coming to a head, with lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit over the project appealing to the California Supreme Court.

For decades Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. has set its sights on a massive railyard in West Long Beach where cargo boxes from the nearby ports could be hitched onto a rail line that would deliver billions of dollars in goods across the country and shore up the company’s competitive edge.

Known as the the Southern California International Gateway project, the plan includes environmental perks, good-paying jobs and less pollution from cargo trucks, BNSF contends.

But Long Beach, air regulators, environmentalists and neighbors balked, contending in lawsuits filed in 2013 the 185-acre yard would actually worsen air quality. They say the project required more investigation in its environmental reports needed for approval, which the city of Los Angeles granted in 2013.

Now Long Beach, along with several other parties that originally filed suit to stop the yard, are trying to take their case to the state Supreme Court, where justices haven’t been shy in delving into the state’s notoriously stringent and complicated environmental laws.

“It’s utterly ridiculous,” said Evelyn Knight, an 84-year old resident who lives in West Long Beach. “I want them to fight this. I will continue to fight this because I care about my life and the life of those in the community and my relatives.”

The massive yard is expected to attract 1.5 million container trucks a year, about 5,500 semi-trucks daily and eight trains a day. Most big rigs are powered by diesel, the fumes that have been linked to asthma, decreased lung function in children and cancer.

“This railyard will be a magnate for dirty trucks and will increase the number of trucks,” Knight said. “Already you can’t get up and down the freeway because of all these trucks.”

Legal wrangling

Prospects for the yard seemed dim after a Superior Court judge in 2016 ordered the city of Los Angeles to set aside its environmental analysis needed to move forward, along with the proposed 50-year lease. But, last month a California appellate overruled that decision and gave both sides a partial victory.

A panel of three judges found the environmental reporting required under the California Environmental Quality Act was mostly met by BNSF with the exception of one point: how air pollution concentrations were determined. The narrower ruling, if left untouched, could force BNSF to revise their analysis, but it also cleared some of the most difficult hurdles, freeing the railroad giant of costly requirements to offset pollution.

“It’s problematic because without adequate mitigation measures, the residents of Long Beach’s westside are going to be inundated with noise and traffic problems,” said Michael Mais, Long Beach deputy city attorney.

The railyard would operate 24 hours, seven days a week. At full operation, roughly two million trucks annually would travel between the port and the facility 4 miles away, bringing an onslaught of barreling big rigs near homes and several schools.

The Los Angeles port and the rail industry looked hopeful that the most recent judgement would get them closer to building on the industrial stretch in Wilmington, on the border of Long Beach. Both released a statement after the ruling saying they were “pleased” with the judgement.

The port “stands by” the report’s “extensive and thorough analyses, as properly informing the public and decision-makers of the project’s effects under the California Environmental Quality Act,” Phillip Sanfield, the port spokesman stated. BNSF said they were weighing options.

Neither would comment further.

But the news was a blow for Long Beach and environmentalists on what they saw as one of the biggest flaws in the port’s and BNSF’s claim: that the new facility would take big rigs off the road by diverting them away from the 710 Freeway.

Truckers take that route on their way to the company’s Hobart facility in Commerce, one the largest intermodal yards in the United States. The environmental impact report done for BNSF and approved by Los Angeles stated no new traffic would be created on the 710 because of the diversion. And that would it lower overall pollution.

“That is simply factually not so,” said David Pettit, an attorney with the Natural Resource Defense Council who represents neighbors and other environmental groups.

Pettit and others have argued a second railyard would actually add more capacity and more diesel-powered, polluting trucks on the freeway.

The appeal court shot down that argument. And it’s one of the points that they are asking the Supreme Court to reconsider, along with how traffic and noise is assessed. It’s important because the more pollution that the railyard causes, the more the company must do to offset it, such as the use of electric-powered train engines and non diesel electric trucks.

So far, the company hasn’t offered enough concessions for any of the parties.

“Our clients want this project killed,” Pettit said.

But for BNSF, this project would be a windfall, allowing them to expand their extensive rail network.

“This is viewed as a national test case,” said Anthony Hatch, a railroad industry analyst.

At issue, he said, is whether a private railroad company can successfully overcome local and state environmental rules to build infrastructure that has a strategic importance for nation’s supply chain.

About 35 percent of the nation’s good are imported from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Of that a third are shipped out by rail, and officials hope that number will rise in the coming years. Both ports vowed to increase rail movement because it’s more efficient and is better for the environment.

But Hatch said if BNSF, a premiere carrier, gets shot down, it will send a message to others looking to build capital intensive projects in the region.

“If they can’t do this, how are they going to do something else?” he asked rhetorically.

This story has been updated to reflect the correct name of the Natural Resources Defense Council.